As a Parapsychologist the main crux of my research revolves around the phenomenon of Extra Sensory Perception. E.S.P. is the ability to percieve information from outside of the five senses. We have already explored a few of the different methods used to experiment with E.S.P such as the Rhine Test or the Ganzfeld experiments, but many people still ask me if I would be kind enough to explain how Extra Sensory Perception works in more detail.

So I've got a nice film for you to watch, starring the legend that is Leonard Nimoy:

We can't really talk
about Telekinesis without mentioning the infamous Nina Kulagina.
During the cold war the USA and the
Soviet Union were in direct technological competition as both sides
sought to build bigger and better weapons than each other. The cold
war in a nut shell. The KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency pumped
millions of roubles into researching paranormal activity and psychic
phenomenon. The most famous of all there discoveries was the Russian
telekinetic Nina Kulagina who could famously move inanimate objects
using telekinesis, but more terrifyingly could stop a beating heart
with her mind!

I
have spend many weeks pouring myself into copies of the leaked KGB
files, as well as numerous reports by respected scientists, two of
whom were Nobel laureates,
to extract any and all information that I could about how Ms.
Kulagina was able to perform such impressive feats using only the
power of Telekinesis (or Psychokinesis). You can see why the KGB
would be so interested in a woman who could stop hearts with her
mind, think of the potential applications in warfare and espionage...

"Oh no, I'm having a heart attack. Bloody communists!"

What
makes Nina Kulagina such an interesting case study is that she was
examined by over forty different scientists under strict laboratory
conditions. She would often be strapped into machines and monitors
which would measure physical changes in her body including
accelerated and altered heartbeat and brain waves. We also
know that she would spend some time
meditating before these feats and would go into a trance like state.
Other symptoms recorded included lower back pain and a temporary
blurring of sight.

For me the question
was: How can we take what we know about Nina Kulagina and use this
information to boost our own psychic power?

There are many tools
that the modern ghosthunter has at his disposal, both paranormal and
scientific.

Today we shall be
looking at the Ouija board. Its something we've all heard about,
people saying in an all mystifying voice “oh be careful...”

The Ouija Board is a
flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9,
the sometimes words such as 'yes' and 'no'. Its primary function is
as a medium for communicating with ghosts or spirits, some even
believe demons! In a séanceparticipants
would place a finger on a 'planchette' and would be guided by a
spirit to spell out a message.

Now we've all heard
horror stories about how dangerous the Ouija Board is and heard all
the warnings, but I can assure you that they are all completely
true... At a ghost hunt I was on recently the lady leading the séance
was whipped in the face by a spirit! But don't let that put you off!

After my last post
about spoon bending quite a few people on Twitter have been messaging
me asking “How do I train in telekinesis?” or “How do I learn
psychokinesis” so I decided that rather than writing out lots of
individual replies I would write up a quick guide so you too can
learn how to develop your telekinetic ability.

The first tool for any
aspiring 'telekinetic' such as yourself is the 'Psi Wheel' they can
be bought from shops, but I wouldn't waste your money, not when you
can make one in your bedroom form shit you have lying around the
house. Grab a post-it, some blue tack and a sewing needle:

Boom. You have your
very own Psi Wheel.

Now the aim of the Psi
wheel is to rotate the paper on the tip of the needle using only your
psychic energy. By focusing your attention in the wheel you will be
able to make it move, it will be difficult at first but don't beat
your self up, I mean if you did it first time the email me
immediately, we'll make a fortune together! When you have mastered
getting the wheel to spin around and are able to do it without
putting your hands near to the wheel try 'turning up the difficulty
setting' and place a jar or glass over it...

Spoon boy:
Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo:
What truth?
Spoon boy:
There is no spoon.
Neo:
There is no spoon?
Spoon boy:
Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Spoon bending was first made popular in the 1970s
after a host of TV performances from Israeli born Uri Gellar and has go on to become a well established part of our culture, almost everyone has
seen or heard about Spoon bending but few people actually know what
its all about.

The phenomenon of spoon bending exploded across
the United States and so called 'PK parties' popped up all over the
country from New York to California. At these events people of all
ages would come together and were guided through rituals and chants
and would attempt to use 'psychokinesis' or 'PK' to bend spoons using
their minds.

Personally I prefer the term 'Telekinesis' which
dates back to 1890 and was coined by Russian psychical researcher
Alexander N. Aksakof and I will be using that from now on. The word
Telekinesis comes from the Greek τηλε, tele meaning "distant"
and κίνησις, "kinesis", meaning motion, movement;
literally "distant-movement" and describes the ability to
interact with the physical world with just your mind. There has been
numerous studies into Telekinesis and yet again we find ourselves
back at J.B Rhine, who was the first person to conduct scientific
studies into telekinesis. The experiments including attempt to
influence the rolls of dice I'm sure we've all had the experience of
playing a board game and trying to make the dice stop on a six or
“lucky seven”! The results showed a statistical variation from
probability, but perhaps the most impressive evidence for TK is
anecdotal.

So, where to begin? At
the start I suppose! That's what Lewis Carroll recommends anyway :P

I climbed into the car
with Gaz and Cath, the two organizers of the event, and in fact the
two people who run 'Spooks Events' as soon as I sat down I felt a
warm feeling coming from them and I knew I was in for an interesting
evening. We had to go and pick up a fourth person, another guest who
attended the Ghost Hunt in Oxford. That was interesting as I had made
a note in my journal the day before that I had expected a third
person, who was unknown to me to be there also.

I must admit that I had
been making pictures in my head about the journey to Oxford (which is
an hours drive away from where I live) and I imagined that it would
be really awkward and that I would hounded by questions like “what
am I thinking?” and such but I can't stress how nice Gaz and Cath
were and they made me feel really comfortable. They are a really good
couple and he loves her more than she knows. It was nice to see them
bickering in that teasing kind of way that people do, like I say they
made me feel really comfortable.

By the time we arrived
at Oxford castle the temperature had dropped to a nice level of
chilly and darkness had descended so the setting was exactly right
for a spooky night of ghost hunting! It was when we arrived that I
first met the lovely Julie Angel Guest, the medium that Spooks Events
had hired for the hunt. I was really glad to meet her and one of my
motives had been to 'model' her and see how she did what she did, so
I was very excited about what I would learn. Her inner chatter was
amongst the loudest I have ever heard, with all the sense firing off!
Forget a sixth sense, she had about sixteen!

The people at Oxford
castle kicked off the event with a historical tour telling us all
about how the castle had changed throughout time, about how it had
gone from being used a main defence of the city of Oxford to being
used as a squalid prison and now the site of countless ghost hunts.
He told us all about Matilda, the grandmother of the Richard the
Lion-heart and King John who famously signed the Magna Carta. It was
a real treat for me as I'm a massive history buff and just to see the
castle was worth the trip.

We had a quick break
and recharged our batteries with some nice coffee and some biscuits.
It was at this point that I realised how little I had done, and
despite looking awesome I hadn't shared any of the thoughts or
feelings I had picked up on the trip. In the pictures I had made in
my head I was running round helping people, talking to the guests and
that but when the time came I had been frozen. I sat down for a
moment and have myself a quick reprogramming.

Now it was Julie's turn
to take us round the castle. This was the part I had been looking
forward to the most, I was looking forward to seeing what she could
do. Even on the first trip round, to be fair to her I could see her
physically reacting at times and could hear her internally making
notes to remember for example the weak knees feeling she felt going
down one certain set of stairs. But yeah, she was mind blowingly
accurate and there wasn't a single person left unimpressed by her. I
had picked up a few of the things that she mentioned but she was
another another level. Even just her ability to decode the extra
sensory input into actual words was impressive, but I guess that’s
all the experience. I couldn't have asked for a better person to
observe. I learnt a lot.

So then they let us loose in the castle. It was cool, yeah like how you are imagining it
now, except no in night vision! We only had torches to aid our sight.
The people at 'Spooks Events' had laid out equipment for the guests
to use, paranormal stuff like pendulums and dowsing rods and the more
scientific type gadgets like infra red thermometers and KII EMF
readers. Realizing this was my chance to be more involved I went into
the castle and just tagged along with a group.

The crypt of the castle
was where we had the most success. The was much activity down there
as I suppose one would expect what with it being used as a place to
store dead bodies! The rest of the castle had been pretty low on
activity but the crypt seemed to be over flowing with spirits. There
was this one corner of the room in which almost everybody picked up
something. A few people said they had been touched when they were in
that part of the room. I rather cheekily sat down with some
mannequins and literally seconds after my bottom made contact with
the wood a small stone hit me in the leg. The EMF reader started
having a fit and we tried to communicate with whatever it was that
was there.

The EVP samples are a
little difficult to understand, and some parts I'm not as sure about
as others. I'd love to hear what you think is being said. For me I
definitely hear “strange” clear as a bell. We got totally lost
in time, ass you often do when your having so much fun and Gaz
actually had to come and round people up! We had another break and
Cath explained that the group would be split into two smaller groups.
One would go with her to the crypt and another would go with Julie
and both groups would attempt to communicate with the spirits using a
Ouija board. We had a lot of success with the EMF meter picking up
signals in the basement so I was keen to see what would be said down
there. The Ouija board gets a bad press and you always hear people
saying, in that mystical tone, “oh be careful.. you don't want to
let anything in... make sure you close properly or you'll be
followed” or whatever and I felt that Cath did an excellent job
(despite being whipped in the face) and made sure that everybody was
safe and grounded. I was very impressed by her during the 'seance'
and her knowledge on the subject of the paranormal was matched only
by her passion for the subject.

All in all I had a
great night. The people were great, warm and very helpful. Spooks
Events were excellent and I would definitely recommend them a million
times over. Sure the EVP samples are a bit hit and miss but I
certainly picked up a lot of vibes in the building, I certainly felt
some presence in the crypt and I did get hit by a stone which I can't
really explain away. What I will take away from the night is a whole
bunch of anecdotes and an even stronger belief that there is
something out there on the other side, something that we can't
explain... yet.

Most people in the know
regard Professor Joseph Banks Rhine as the granddaddy of
Parapsychology. Way back in the 1930's at Duke University, along
with associate Dr. Karl Zener, the pair were amongst he first to seek
evidence of Extra Sensory Perception using the 'scientific method'.

The method revolved
around the use of Zener cards, or ESP cards as they are more commonly
known. There are a total of 25 cards each bearing one of the five
symbols, repeated five times. The cards would be mixed and then 'the
sender' would select the cards one at a time. In turn 'The receiver'
would attempt to name the card said person was thinking of.

What makes this so
interesting is that because there are only five to choose from the
chances of guessing correctly are one in five or 25%. But the tests show
that, against probability the participants were able to achieve a
much higher score. 1850 trials were taken.
Probability would expect a 20% sucess rate, or 370 hits. The total
number of successes actually scored for the series is 558,
which is better than 30%

Many people in the
scientific community doubted the results of J.B Rhine's E.S.P test
citing flaws in the experiment, cheating or bias as reason for
inaccuracy. To their amazement though when the tests have been
reproduced by sceptics of E.S.P, such as the famous Richard Wiseman
the results have been similar.

I've said it before and I will say it again: By the standards applied to any other science ESP has been proven to exist.

Still many people I meet in the street don't believe in ESP and think that what I do is somekind of trick. When I tell them that Extra Sensory Perception has been proved to exist in the lab then they say things like "I think I would know about that" but the startling fact is most poeple don't!

The Ganzfeld Experiment consists of two
participants in separate rooms trying to communicate with each other
using telepathy. Person A is deprived of sensory input and is bathed
in a red light whilst person B views images on a TV screen and
attempts to relay them to the next room. Person A vocalises any words
or feelings felt during the telepathic transmission which are
recorded on tape or whatever. These telepathic thoughts and feelings
are then compared with the original images send from Person A. The
results are astonishingly accurate. Time and time again the Ganzfeld
experiments have yielded results that deviate from randomness to a
significant degree.

Over the course of thousands of experiments, by
the standards applied to any other science, ESP has been proven to
exist.